Mendip DSO

BBC2 went off mid-junction a couple of weeks back, I was hoping the other channels would follow suit so I can capture at least some of the switch offs.

When they switched off Winter Hill the only programme that ended was on BBC One. ITV, Channel 4 and Five were cut off mid-programme, although all channels had gone by about 12.20am.

Everything except BBC1 went within the first 20 mins, but BBC1 is still going. Maybe it'll go on until the film is over! I didn't manage to capture any of the others but it was too hard to predict. C4 flickered first, but ITV1 went off first! C4 was the only one that seemed to go off during a junction, mid-ident, though I don't know if they announced anything as I had the sound off whilst flicking through on the telly and recording on the HDD.

It did, went off at around 01:20

I turned on my TV just after midnight briefly. Analogue ITV1 and C4 (Bath relay) had gone. The lousy analogue Five off Mendip had also gone. Analougue BBC1 (Bath) was still there, so I set my DVD recorder to record the 1:20 junction, i.e. between the film (what was it called?) and whatever was on next.

Wednesday evening I saw that recording. The film credits rolled, and a BBC3 trailer followed. Part way through the BBC3 trailer the analogue BBC1 recording became a snowstorm abruptly, no warning. So evidently at the Mendip transmitter group, they didn't have a formal shutdown of analogue BBC1, unlike the analogue BBC1 Wales shutdown from Wenvoe a week earlier that I've seen on You Tube.

Now that I get muxes PSB1 (UHF channel 25) and PSB2 (UHF channel 28 ) from the Bath relay, here's the channels I can get:
Television
1 BBC One
2 BBC Two
3 ITV1
4 Channel 4
5 Five
6 ITV2
7 BBC Three
9 BBC Four
13 Channel 4+1
14 More 4
28 E4
33 ITV2+1
70 CBBC Channel
71 CBeebies
80 BBC News
81 BBC Parliament

Text Services
100 Teletext
102 Rabbit
105 BBC Red Button
106 Directgov
107 Gay Rabbit

301 301

Radio
700 BBC Radio 1
701 BBC 1Xtra
702 BBC Radio 2
703 BBC Radio 3
704 BBC Radio 4
705 BBC R5L
706 BBC R5SX
707 BBC 6 Music
708 BBC Radio 7
709 BBC Asian Network
710 BBC World Service
728 Heart

No-where except Wenvoe last week has acknowledged the shutdown when it's happened (although very few people would have seen it). BBC Wales does it's own full time presentation so it was possible there, but the english regions don't, it would be technically possible but would require bringing some of the regional news crew back late at night.

Wales also had the advantage that their pres suites were configured to separate analogue and digital for 2W, and probably had a similar facility for BBC1 as there was little reason not to add it in these days of computer controlled routing.

It would be nice if some of the other regions did mark the event, perhaps Brum getting Alistair Yates to reprise his epic Midlands Closedown sequences. I can't see Leeds letting the event pass without doing something with people like Ian White and Tom Ingall there.

Bristol gained the ability to split analogue and digital and used it a couple of times in the month leading up to the switch over.

Lots of US TV stations did cover their 'digital transitions' live on TV but they mostly happened at midday. the amount of engineering work required at each site for the changes here means that's not really possible

It's not exactly a news event, having been trailed for many years, it's also no longer unique as now almost half the transmitters in the Country are wholly digital, Notable in news programmes before and after but definitely imo not worth a song and dance at the time of switchoff.

Agreed, but I bet London will do a song and dance about it....
and BBC Scotland, so as not to be outdone by BBC Wales

Tuesday evening Points West showed separate reports on analogue BBC1 and digital BBC1 about what to do to continue watching TV on Wednesday and beyond, i.e. follwing switchover. I watched the report on analogue BBC1 and recorded the one on digital BBC1, which I watched after to compare the difference.

Analogue BBC1 report: options for getting digital: Freeview, Freesat (BBC/ITV version), Sky, cable (they didn't mention Freesat from Sky).
Digital BBC1 report: what to do on Wednesday. Digital cable/satellite: do nothing; existing Freeview viewers: do something (rescan your box/TV - first time install).

Interestingly the digital BBC1 report warned about the possibility of getting Wales Today instead of Points West following a rescan, and told viewers to put in channel 61 when doing a manual retune. They didn't say though that's only applicable to Mendip, and the PSB1 (BBCA) UHF frequency would be different for relays.

Wow, that's the first post of yours that I've found interesting.